


Apologies

by ShrupInterrupts



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Talking About the Past, ileostomy mention, old men with feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 06:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13001892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrupInterrupts/pseuds/ShrupInterrupts
Summary: It’s hard to apologize for the fights, the paranoia, losing faith and trust in one another enough for the world to literally explode at their feet...it’s easier to apologize for the scars that explosion left behind.





	Apologies

**Author's Note:**

> I will stop projecting my own issues onto these old men when I am dead.
> 
> For those wondering- and Ileostomy bag is a bag attached to your small intestines through your side that intercepts things you are digesting. Tends to be used when your colon/ large intestines are damaged or inoperable. Some are permanent and others temporary. You do have to clean it out manually and change bags which can be unpleasant to downright painful. It's brought up here but not in explicit detail. If you're more curious you can surely look it up but be careful if you are squicked easily.
> 
> Unbeta'd so please let me know if you spot any mistakes!

Gabriel strokes through Jack’s thinning hair, talons scraping pleasantly against his scalp as morning breaks over the base. He’s come to enjoy these sleepy mornings. Without Talon the stillness, softness, and quiet are not things to fear. They are not weaknesses he has to guard lest they be exploited. There is no ulterior motive as Jack curls tighter to his side tracing old wounds and smoking patches of skin with easy touches.  
  
Their scars are a tapestry, stitched stories of their lives together. Failures, triumphs, costs, regrets, some of the hardest moments of the lives written in a language they’ve come to learn to read in each other’s skin.  
  
Relearning one another, prying out the stories of the new and old marks has become something of a regular thing for them. It’s hard to apologize for the fights, the paranoia, losing faith and trust in one another enough for the world to literally explode at their feet...it’s easier to apologize for the scars that explosion left behind.  
  
Tucked into their serviceable but not quite comfortable bed on the far side of the Gibraltar base, Gabriel is content to let Jack find a new one to talk about. Smokes wafts in lazy curls over them both, the old soldier long ago learning not to mind the way it laps across his skin. His finger skate across Gabriel’s abdomen, mostly whole today though his face and chest are pock marked with fissures where the nanites work steadily to repair decaying cells. He crosses over a jagged section where three scars intersect, reaching past them to a small vertical incision on his right side. Practically clinging now, Jack circles and traces the neat line. Gabriel can’t see his face but knows him well enough to know his brow is drawn, face tight as he lets the minutes tick away.  
  
There is no rush. Jack will speak in his own turn, take the moment to prepare what he wants to say. What he wants to apologize for. Gabriel’s free hand wraps around Jacks back to scratch idly in time with his carding fingers.  
  
“Do you remember that Omnium?” Seems he can’t find a place to start and leaves it open to Gabriel. Together they can piece together the story of this wound.  
  
“Titus right?” He knows it is, but asks anyway just to feel Jack nod into his side. “Second to last one of the Crisis. Fought dirty.”  
  
The whole place had been boobie trapped. When it was clear they omnium was not going to survive the assault, it simply tried to take as many of the newly formed Overwatch as it could. Hazmat barrels loaded into artillery, slathered over it’s omnics. Crude bombs of screws and bolts and shrapnel hidden in nearly every nook and cranny. It was a nightmare. Every hallway a new challenge as they clawed to the core.  
  
And on the way out Gabriel caught the broad side of a IED blast.  
  
Gabriel cracks his neck with a roll, “Not much after we took the core. Promised Gerard a drink for taking it out quick...then nothing. Report said we made it back to the entrance, probably the only reason I survived. Stuck me right on a transport with a medic.” It was strange reading about his own near death experiences and not having any memories to support them.  
  
Jack stretches, joints popping before settling again, head pillowed on Gabriel‘s chest.“My team was in the air when it happened. We were waiting for your team on the tarmac. They tried to wheel you past me without stopping. I saw-” Jack freezes, says nothing and moves none.  
  
Whatever he remembers is enough to have him hold tighter around Gabriel’s middle like he’s afraid to lose him again. The words return, but he moves on, not daring to breach that sentence againt, “Broke Singh’s arm when he and Liao held me back. I tried charging into the OR after you. “  
  
“Ana threatened to have me sedated. Then she did it when I punched a tech for not letting me in to see you.” He laughs, but it’s a strained sound, “Longest hours of my life and I spent half of it strung out of my mind. Ana at least had me moved to your room so I could be there when they carted you in. ”  
  
“But things got better,” Gabriel draws him back to the present, back to the warm bed they share, the sun peaking through the blinds, the sounds of the world waking softly around them. They breach memories often, but he does not want to see them drown in the past. “You made it through, and so did I.”  
  
Jack sighs, “Not before it got worse. Ana kept trying to get me to leave you. I wouldn’t let her. Made her shoulder paperwork and debriefs and the press and higher ups. Made her do not just my job but yours too. I couldn’t leave you. Not like that. ”  
  
Painkillers didn’t work on them. SEP had given them an enhanced natural healing factor but also a system that pushed out narcotics notoriously fast. It was early enough in Overwatch’s history that Mercy’s biotic technology was merely the hypothesis of a young doctor. There was nothing to do then but try the conventional means and hope for the best.  
  
The official report had declared he was and unruly and had to be restrained. Gabriel could only imagine how bad it was in actuality. Fevered and frantic, every time he woke to an unfamiliar room drowning in pain he would have lashed out. He would have clawed and scrapped and tried to pull all the needles and tubes free. He never had enjoyed hospitals. He understands why Jack would refuse to leave. Who else could have held him down? Who else could have kept him and the nurses safe? Who else would feel guilt if he had died in minutes unsupervised?  
  
He would have done the same if their positions had been reversed. Even then, before they had talked about being more than war buddies with benefits, he was head over heels for his second in command.  
  
“And that was only the beginning.” Jack sounds tired. It seems they’re getting to the real regrets. To the things that are hard for for them to talk about face to face, but like this, Gabriel pressing his face to the crown of Jack’s head, it’s easier.  
  
“I couldn’t even tell you what had happened. I couldn’t figure out how to just say “ Hey you technically died like twice. Hey your insides are a wreck, they took out like 5 feet of intestines, so you have an ostomy bag. Hey you might have to live with this for the rest of your life”. Supposed to be so great at talking to people and I failed,” His voice pitches high, almost panicked in its self depreciation. Gabriel keeps his face pressed firmly to the top of his head, allows Jack this moment to voice his regrets. “I saw your face and I ran out of the room. I thought I knew what to say- they explained it to me so many times by the time you were stable and coherent- but I ran.”  
  
“How _the fuck_ was I supposed to tell you the war was all but won and you might never be able to take a shit again? Fuck, the only reason they hadn’t already prepped you to ship out for medical treatment and eventual discharge was they were hoping SEP would give you some intestinal miracle. There’s no way to spin that into something good. I thought I was staring at the end of us and I ran.” His hand has stopped, covering the faded incision. “Spent a week at your side...and the second you’re awake and back in your head, I leave abandoned you.”  
  
Silence fills the room. Gabriel draws a breath before speaking, “When I woke up I was terrified.” There were a few foggy moments between the bust and coherency, but they were blurs of yelling and hallucinations better left forgotten. “Strapped to a bed, feeling like shit, plugged and stitched and prodded, and you bolted as soon as I asked what happened. That hurt.”  
  
He feels Jack’s miserable nod as he strokes a smoking hand up and down broad scarred shoulders.  
  
“I thought you were afraid _of_ me, not afraid for me.” Back then when SEP was new and they felt like young gods born to fight, he worried a lot about hurting others. Who could stop him if he became some mindless rabid force? Thinking he might have done something to scare Jack, his Jack away has been terrifying.  
  
He tilts his head just enough to speak around a wry grin, “And let’s be frank Jackie, the doctors were better at explaining everything. “You can’t shit" is not a great way to say you have ileostomy bag." Jack doesn't react beyond a half hearted huff.  
  
"I wish you hadn’t run. But you came back. You were there when it mattered.” Still Jack doesn't seem to respond.  
  
“You were there keeping me and the staff safe when I wasn’t in my right mind. You were there when I woke up. You were there in the days and weeks after when I learned how to live with that dumb thing. When I learned how to sit up and walk and what meds I had to take when. You were there when I thought I was going to have to give up my career, live with that forever, not even get to see the end of the Crisis with you. When I thought I was done being useful or wanted. There when I got the bag removed and, yea, there when I shit all by myself again.” He pauses to laugh into the white hair. Ironic how afraid he was of living with a chronic medical issue back then.  
  
He feels the tiniest chuckle from Jack. And that’s enough for him. He rolls, twisting in Jack’s grip and shimming down so they can look at one another. One hand runs over the stubble of his jaw while Jack tries not to look away.  
  
“I forgave you for running a long time ago but I’ll say it again as often as you need, sunshine: I forgive you.”  
  
And it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I really just wanted to explore the idea of 1) the old men working on that long road to reconciliation 2) letting Jack be the more surly/ dramatic one and 3) dealing with medical issues even enhancements and coolass robo prosthetics might not fix. Humans are so fucking squishy and fragile?? Even with incredible speed and reflexes and strength there's only so much you can do. 
> 
> Had fun exploring how I think Jack, Mr. Regretty-Spaghetti himself, would react when reminded death isn't the only thing that could have separated them early on in their relationship.


End file.
